


Zuc Efron

by FoiblePNoteworthy



Series: Guilt (The Jet Adopts Zuko AU) [6]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Can be read as a stand alone, Fluff, Gen, High School Musical References, Humor, I just want Zuko to have friends, baby zuko, but this is the last bit of fluff you'll get for a while so, have fun with that, he smol, how does tagging work again, season 1 style zuko, smol baby, theatre nerd!zuko, this is probably the dumbest this series is gonna get, this is v self-indulgent, this is very silly, vague references to prostitutes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:02:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24047110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FoiblePNoteworthy/pseuds/FoiblePNoteworthy
Summary: Zuko's been in the theatre crew since he was thirteen. Meanwhile, the Wani crew fucked up.(Not technically a gift fic but i stole Muffin's Wani crew and channelled lil' Zuko so. Yeah)CAN BE READ AS A STANDALONE
Relationships: Zuko & Zuko's Crew (Avatar)
Series: Guilt (The Jet Adopts Zuko AU) [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1557868
Comments: 67
Kudos: 833





	Zuc Efron

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MuffinLance](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MuffinLance/gifts).



> Thanks to H_Faith_Marr for beta-ing and to MuffinLance for giving everyone a wani crew to work with so we can pretend they're official characters

The Wani crew hadn’t expected to be entirely and undeniably screwed on the one night they decided not to visit the, ah, lovely men and ladies who worked the ports. They couldn’t really afford to anymore; at least, not at the rate they’d been going through coin for the last few days. Last few _months._

For reasons their Captain refused to explain, they could spend days on end at one port with only a few days’ travel in-between, or mere hours at one after over a month stuck at seas.

Whatever he was doing in the ports, he disappeared to do it and gave no indication where or why. Even the General seemed uncertain of where he went.

Regardless, back when The Prince had been in his slave-driver days of ~~old~~ the first few months, they’d let themselves get into the habit of spending all their coin whenever they had the chance, desperate for a small break from the pint-sized terror. This habit had continued into these new days of erratic leave.

Such as this particular time, which had lasted nearly _two weeks._

Thus came their collective decision to visit the bards of the area - they were supposed to be putting on a small production of some famous musical trilogy, and explaining half the plot instead of showing it to make the runtime short enough to work (while keeping in all the music and dance numbers). It was supposed to be a comedy of sorts, with the straight-faced overly dramatic performances and simple problems faced by the protagonists, about some teens who couldn’t decide what they wanted from life – to pursue a career in some earth kingdom sport or as a singer.

It didn’t sound like all that much, but their lack of real sets or props, or actors who knew all of their lines (apparently half of them were improvised just to save them rehearsal time) kept the price low, which was all the crew was really looking for.

They had nothing better to do. And they didn’t want to spend _another_ night drinking on the ship with a mopey empty-nested General Iroh strong-arming them into games of Pai Sho they knew they’d lose.

So, off to the bards they went.

It seemed safe enough at first. The warm-up numbers were entertaining enough (it was nice to hear some quality music after weekly music night sessions burning their eardrums) and the dancers clearly knew what they were doing. They hadn’t gone into this expecting a masterpiece, which had lowered their expectations enough for them to be pleasantly surprised.

However, when the show got started properly, with a duet between the male and female leads, there was something… off about it. Something they couldn’t quite put their fingers on.

Something to do with the male lead.

They couldn’t be sure because of the singing – and boy, did that kid have a pair of lungs on him, both in quality and quantity – but his voice was familiar in some way. They couldn’t get a good look at his face unless it was turned directly towards them, due to his wide-brimmed hat, but there was something up with his skin. While he was likely wearing make-up – apparently they had to, to keep their skin looking right under the bright lights – the skin around one of his eyes was… what _was_ that?

It clicked as soon as he started speaking instead of singing. There was no mistaking that voice. They knew it far better than they would have liked to, at even higher volumes than are necessary for a stage production.

And that was when they realised they were screwed.

***

These last two weeks had been the best in years. Zuko was surrounded by people that didn’t know him well enough to hate him, that let him _sing_ with them and had taught him to _dance_ \- and _everybody_ was in this port tonight.

There was Lei with her own scar and vaguely insulting brand of comedy. It was so weird but also nice to have a friend to talk to about girls and stuff even though she was a girl as well - and no one had told Zuko _that_ was allowed, but it gave him a lot of things to think about, because he’d never understood the appeal of girls anyway (except that they could have babies and he’d need an heir when he was Firelord, so it didn’t matter anyway, really, that girls were allowed to like girls ~~so boys and boys must be allowed too~~. It wasn’t worth thinking about).

Plus, there was little Tu begging firebending lessons off of him (not that they’d figured out he was a firebender yet, by the Grace of Agni, just that he knew a thing or two about it) and teaching him even more dances in exchange. Their bending had really come on in leaps and bounds over the last few weeks (as, Zuko felt, had his dancing).

This production was bigger than anything Zuko had ever been a part of – Tu’s big brother Shui and his crew had joined up with another group that had come into town, allowing them to put on their best performance ever.

And Zuko was the star.

Just the thought of it made him want to wriggle with delight except that he was a Prince and, even though everybody here thought he was a peasant so it didn’t matter anyway (and that shouldn’t have been fun but for some reason it was?), he wanted to keep a hold of his (what-was-the-word?) _‘decorum’._

He hadn’t been the star the whole time he was here, of course, but it hadn’t taken long for his friends to get him up to speed and he was on the stage by the second night. For nearly a week he’d played the lead alongside Lei (which was kinda weird because she was pretending to be his girlfriend, which was gross, but that was how acting worked anyway, he supposed).

It was especially exciting because he really loved these musicals – especially the songs, which was all they were doing basically and _wasn’t that cool!_ – because he loved the main character _(that_ he _got to play!)_ and his story, where he felt torn in two between Earthball and drama, just like Zuko with Capturing the Avatar and drama (except _not_ because of course he was going to Capture the Avatar and drama wasn’t important at all, it was just a useful way to learn about the Earth Kingdom).

(He always got a huge applause during _Bet On It_ because of his amazing understanding of the character he was playing.)

Despite everything, in the back of his mind Zuko felt like there was something off. This was the last night before they all left and would hopefully meet up at the next port, so, at first, he’d thought that maybe (just _maybe_ ) he wasn’t looking forwards to going back to the too-big and too-small ship and being around grown-ups who wouldn’t listen to him no matter how loud he got and none of them wanted to talk to him because he was small and the Prince and sometimes a bit shouty.

But, as the night went on, he felt that there was something more to the strange feeling than that.

He tried not to let his distractions show throughout his performance, particularly in his solo, when it felt more concentrated, but he still found himself fumbling a line or two and missing the occasional step in his dancing because of the strange feeling, which only made him more determined to find out the source of it.

In his breaks when scenes without him were on, he tried to sneak through the audience to see things from their perspective, to see if there was something wrong with the lights or the props that would ruin the show from their perspective, but half the time he was caught by Shui and dragged back just in time for his own scenes. Whenever he did manage it he found nothing anyway.

When onstage he scanned through the audience, trying to spot a familiar face or a threatening look – if Uncle knew he was doing this, he’d never be able to escape the sacrilege of Music Night, and Uncle would tell everyone about his singing and this was _Zuko’s_ thing – but saw nothing.

By the time he took his final bow, he’d grown accustomed to the feeling, even though it spiked during the final song of the night.

The feeling shifted into something else – something _much_ worse - when his friends demanded hugs and gave their last goodbyes and he left to go back to the Wani.

He tried to brush off the emotion – he’d see them again soon enough – but his sleep was poor that night.

***

They left the port first thing next morning. It was worth noting that that had been the bards’ last show before they, too, moved on, in the exact same direction as them.

Apparently, whatever spirit had chosen to throw the Wani’s crew into that situation last night had taken enough pity on them to help them escape undetected.

The Prince hadn’t seen them where they hid in the back of the audience. Hadn’t heard their furious debating whispers of _“we should leave before he spots us”_ vs _“if we leave he will_ definitely _spot us”._ Nor had he heard their cheering and clapping following his (lovey-dovey _do-we-need-to-worry-about-this_ ) romantic duet with his co-star, nor for his (straight-faced and humorously dramatic) solo song.

There had been a close call during the finale when Engineer Hanako had cheered so loudly he’d _looked at them_ and they’d needed to dogpile her and hide under the standing ovation. He didn’t see them, luckily, and they’d crawled out while he was distracted by his adoring crowd.

It was fine. They’d gotten away with it. He hadn’t seen them. He didn’t know that they knew. It was fine.

It wasn’t fine.

***

It _would have been_ fine had Helmsman Kyo not been _humming_ on the deck the next morning.

Prince Zuko was mid-drill, already throwing fire at the half-asleep crew, when he stopped and froze, his face turning red and white and back again, like a chameleon-dog, his good eye round as a coin in shock.

They might have gotten away with just throwing Kyo under the Komodo-rhino and saving their own eardrums, had he not looked at them in his panic, making the Prince do the same.

His hands in fists and his face having decided that flushing was the best option, he scowled and opened his mouth and-

“Helmsman Kyo, what a lovely song,” General Iroh complimented, stepping out onto the deck. “Were you out seeing the bards last night? I heard that they put on quite a performance.”

The Prince paled.

Kyo bore the rabbit-deer-before-a-moose-lion look he always wore so well.

“I uh- yeah, it was. Something.”

The Prince was looking at him. Was he insulting him right now? But surely the Prince wouldn’t want the General to go and see him – or maybe he would. He didn’t _look_ like he thought he would, but.

Kyo froze under the Prince’s glare and the General’s polite inquisitions.

“It was fantastic,” said The Suicidal Engineer Hanako. “We all had a great time. The lead boy was especially good, don’t you guys think?” She looked at everyone, confirming their presence last night, and dooming them all.

If the prince wasn’t going to kill her, then the rest of them would.

_(What was going on with that kid’s face? How was it so serious and so angry and so attentive all at once? How was it that red? Was he going to faint?)_

“Yeah, he was,” Kyo, already past the point of no return, bravely stepped in, letting the rest of them stay quiet. “I really liked that one solo song he did.”

“The duets were really good as well though, weren’t they?” Lieutenant Jee said, despite not needing to do so. “He and the other girl worked really well together.”

At the edge of their collective peripherals (they were all too terrified to look at him directly right now), the Prince seemed to relax, and his face returned to its normal, healthy tone. He wasn’t even scowling anymore. (Which was a _first_.)

Hanako nodded in agreement. “I wonder if the actors are a couple, like they are in the show.”

The crew swivelled their collective heads to stare at her in horror.

…was she trying to kill them?

The Prince – rapidly reddening again, though not with anger, this time – cleared his throat. “I’ve heard the rabble in these parts talking about the bards and their musicals,” he scoffed, as though he hadn’t been _in the musicals_ himself, “Apparently the girl has no interest in men, and makes fun of the boy’s eyebrow besides.”

(As aware as they had been that he was missing an eyebrow, it had never quite struck them right that he _only had one eyebrow_.)

His eye widened as he realised what a specific detail that was. One that wouldn’t just be recognised not by the crew…

The General raised his own eyebrow. “His eyeb-”

“WHAT ABOUT THAT FINALE THOUGH,” Kyo shouted, inconspicuously. “WOW, THAT WAS REALLY A THING THAT WE SHOULD TALK ABOUT.”

“YES, IT WAS REALLY SWEET WHEN THEY ALL SANG TOGETHER,” Jee agreed at a higher-than-strictly-necessary volume. He shifted his weight, his armour creaking the message, _Someone help us out here or you’ll be cleaning the latrines for a month_.

They loudly discussed the merits of the musicals of the night before, sprinkling in praise for the Prin- _the lead boy’s_ performance. The General seemed to forget about the eyebrow comment.

The Prince didn’t speak again, but listened attentively, flushing occasionally at their words.

***

At the next port, the crew were almost as excited to find the local bards as the Prince had been.

[Here is a doodle if you want it.](https://foiblepnoteworthy.tumblr.com/post/190787426162/okay-so-i-was-gonna-write-but-this-wouldnt-leave)

[Here is another doodle.](https://foiblepnoteworthy.tumblr.com/post/617411460233084928/zuc-efron-foiblepnoteworthy-avatar-the-last)

**Author's Note:**

> kudos comment subscribe to the main series for stuff that both is and isn't this
> 
> (Hello, my darling regulars, how are y'all doing this fine day?)
> 
> next update will be in two weeks (its been fun doing it weekly but it's not sustainable so... yeah.)
> 
> okay so i know that this doesn't really fit with the rest of the stuff in this series that well, but it is needed for the subplot i am planning to shove in and also is pretty fun so you're probably not complaining anyway. I wrote this like three months ago and have just been waiting to get it out so its just so satisfying to finally throw it at y'all.
> 
> Next part we get into angst and testing the emotional bonds and promises everyone made in our regularly scheduled programming. I promise angst and crying, because, like, come on, it's time :)
> 
> (I know the rest of this series has a nice jet but if you happen to hate jet and are still somehow here he keeps getting punched in the face emotionally in recent updates of the non-evil twin series (in which Zuko convinces the gang he's his own twin brother; its the dumbest thing and i funking love it))
> 
> Tumblr, wherein you can yell at me and watch me try to illustrate some of this series (includes some Zuko doing Bet On It): https://www.tumblr.com/blog/foiblepnoteworthy


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